January
The Superbowl's halftime-show extravaganza is headlined by the rejuvenated Teletubbies, who are joined by Pat Boone, Ashlee Simpson, Kermit The Frog and members of Rockapella for the rousing centerpiece song "Up With Consideration." At the song's climax, the yellow Teletubby rips away a portion of its costume's chest area, to reveal a small American flag. The FCC hails the show as "a near-triumph of quality family entertainment," but condemns Simpson's presence as "mildly offensive, just, you know, in principle."
February
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays relocate and become the Denver Mustangs. The team continues to do its spring training in the Bay area, and immediately begins to draw bigger crowds during the off-season than it did during its last three years at Tropicana Field. Naturally, the Denver Mustangs go on to win the 2005 World Series. The City of St. Petersburg makes the best of a bad situation by entering into an extended lease agreement for the Trop with Christian men's group The Promise Keepers.
March
The second weekend of the month brings record low temperatures. A freak storm dusts the entire state with a half-inch of snow. Traffic on Clearwater Beach, St. Pete's Central Avenue and all around the Port of Tampa is brought to a standstill as commuters abandon their SUVs rather than attempt to negotiate roundabouts in such conditions. Local elementary school students whose parents are unfamiliar with the term "snow day" are dropped off in droves in front of cold, empty institutions on Monday; fortunately, they're all able to text-message their folks with their cell phones (some also send camera-phone photos of the schools' locked front doors), and no one freezes.
April
The Weekly Planet challenges TBT to a little friendly competition. The day-long contest is made up of several industry-related games, including "Timed Research," "Get The Curmudgeonly Old Shopkeeper to Buy an Ad," "Commandeer That Rack," "Deadline Stretching" and "Drink and Bitch." TBT wins, but only because they bring in help from the Sacramento Bee, the Wall Street Journal and the Gainesville Sun. Plans are made to institute the competition as an annual tradition. It disappears in 2006, however, when Sterling Powell's glossy Citi Life goes weekly, and puts both papers out of business.
May
In an ironic twist, the year's first local "shark bite" news story concerns a young man who bites a small shark that bumps him as he's swimming off Treasure Island; the young man tells reporters, "I was gonna get a chunk of him, before he got a chunk of me." The story prompts local PETA volunteers to take to Bay area beaches in protest, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the provocative slogan "Eat Me." One PETA activist is bitten on the knee while cooling off in the surf. "In a way, it was cool," she tells reporters from her hospital bed. "I've never felt so close to nature. I was part of the food chain. But on the other hand, it just wasn't right. We're trying to help the sharks. People are animals too, you know? We should also be treated ethnically."
June
A fistfight between two teens at Centro Ybor nearly escalates into a riot before security and police intervene. In the wake of the incident, Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms calls for the abolishment of summer, saying that the combination of hot weather and free time "suffuses the loins of young rogues with a desire for randy malfeasance and the sinful pleasures of the flesh." Her colleagues nod in agreement, but collectively roll their eyes when she goes back to searching The Book of Revelations.
July
In the early morning hours of July 5, some guy who smells like whiskey and gunpowder shows up in the E.R. at Bayfront Hospital. The seat of his shorts is ripped and blackened, and he refuses to sit down. He also refuses to tell anyone but the attending physician what happened, or what's wrong with him. The only information he divulges, repeatedly and in a slurred voice, is that he's going to "kick the ever-lovin' shit out of Bobby" when he gets out of there.
August
It rains every day, at around 4 p.m., for about 45 minutes.
September
The last symbol of old-school, pre-boom Hyde Park, The Tiny Tap, closes. The building is razed. In its place is erected the latest thing in posh-neighborhood physical fitness, the starter gym — a gym where the out-of-shape and not-so-beautiful can go until they get buff enough to be seen at one of the other gyms.
October
With its new building finished and occupied, Tampa community radio station WMNF launches a series of concerts aimed at raising money for the Save The Old Building, Because The New Building Just Doesn't Feel Like Home Fund.
November
Around the country, several hundred families express their opposition to the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq by dressing their children as Muslims for Halloween trick-or-treating. After thousands of angry phone calls, many of the parents are later brought in for questioning by various local and national law-enforcement agencies. An uproar over civil liberties and freedom of expression ensues. In an attempt to quell it, President Bush explains that the issue isn't the detained parents' politics, but rather the opportunity they provided for real 3-foot-tall Muslim terrorists to blend in and move freely throughout America's suburban neighborhoods.
December
As Christmas approaches, various Christian groups band together and announce that, due to last year's somewhat less-than-successful attempts to "put the Christ back in Christmas," they intend to divorce themselves from the holiday completely. They are leaving Christmas to the consumers, and will institute a new, more intensely religious celebration the following September, as it's "far enough away from Easter, comparatively light holiday-wise, and well before the rush." Five different corporate entities immediately move to purchase the rights to Christmas; after a short legal battle, a satisfactory compromise is reached. Merry General Electric and Verizon Present The Apple Computers SantaFest '05, Brought To You By Viacom And Southwest Airlines, everybody.
scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Dec 29, 2004 – Jan 4, 2005.